


On the He-Dao Lian

by Philosophizes



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Crossover, Gen, More than one of these, Multi, Partial Fusion, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5112683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Much has been made in the years since the end of the Hundred Year War of the valuable qualities of each of the elements; and since the founding of the United Republic of Nations of the diversity to be found within the elements. Everyone, so we have been told, is welcome in the Republic, from the water benders of the Foggy Swamp to the sandbenders from the Si Wong Desert to the least of the common laborers of the Fire Nation. </p><p>And yet one group has gone mostly ignored, even after the organization of the new Earth States.</p><p>Here, let us truly speak, for the first time, of the He-Dao Lian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you're familiar with my fic _With Sorrow We Accept Our Fortunes_ , you'll be somewhat familiar with the framing device I use. Each chapter is about evenly split between the _'book'_ and the plot.
> 
> Also, this fic is going to be almost exclusively Hetalia characters. Korra characters will show up eventually, but it'll take a bit and they'll never be _major_ characters. Really what I'm interested in in this fic is figuring out how Hetalia characters would fit into this setting, and the worldbuilding I'm using to explain the presence of so many blonde white people.

_Much has been made in the years since the end of the Hundred Year War of the valuable qualities of each of the elements; and since the founding of the United Republic of Nations of the diversity to be found within the elements. Everyone, so we have been told, is welcome in the Republic, from the water benders of the Foggy Swamp to the sandbenders from the Si Wong Desert to the least of the common laborers of the Fire Nation._

_And yet one group has gone mostly ignored, even after the organization of the new Earth States._

_Here, let us truly speak, for the first time, of the He-Dao Lian._

_The origin of the name ‘He-Dao Lian’ is lost to history. We must make do with the standard polite rendition of the ethnonym:_ _和道_ _联. 和-_ _hè; to compose a poem in reply to another’s poem, using the same rhyme sequence._ _道_ _\- daò; road, way, or path, here with a particular metaphorical connotation._ _联_ _-lián; to ally or to join. The literal meaning of the ethnonym ‘He-Dao Lian’ is commonly given as ‘Those Who Have Joined Us to Admiringly Imitate Our Ways’_. _This reveals a certain level of ethnic self-aggrandizement, especially when one considers how often He-Dao Lian is seen written not as_ _和道联_ _,  but as_ _和盗联_ _, often by people of otherwise honorable and respectable conduct, replacing the_ _道_ _-daò with the_ _盗_ _-daò to name these people ‘Those Who Have Joined Us to Imitate Us and Act as Thieves and Bandits’._

_The implied slights in both these names are truly appalling in character._

_Nonetheless, the name ‘He-Dao Lian’ contains within it proof a fundamental, yet often deliberately-ignored, point about these people- they came from somewhere else.  Many are you who have immediately picked out a He-Dao Lian not by the travel-worn clothes or flat, confusing accents of the stock comedic character Hua Daolian of so many traveling shows; but by their dun yellow or potters’-clay brown hair. In no element does this phenomenon occur; and now, after decades of visible mixing in the territory of the United Republic, it can be definitively discounted that such an appearance is the curse of a spirit for daring to mix blood across elemental lines._

_Those whose legal family name is Daolian, ‘Those Who Have Joined Us’, are very simply from_ somewhere else. _Where that may be, we do not know. But their ancestors were not those of Water, or of Earth, or of Fire, or of Air. They seem even to be not of the spirits; for I have learned that it is a mark of past exogamous relations in the family line among the He-Dao Lian to be born a bender._

_From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

“Firmer!” came the order. “It’s a _strong_ stance, Li Pin! You’re _earthbending,_ not trying to dance on coals!”

_They’re_ all _strong stances,_ Matthew thought rebelliously, but tried to spread his legs a bit wider and plant his feet more firmly. He punched out, a short diagonal column of stone shot out of the ground to follow the movement.

The teacher didn’t say anything congratulatory about how he’d finally managed the form, but Matthew would have been surprised if the man had. He might only be eight, but he’d learned that _fān sìdà_ didn’t do things like that. Not to people like him.

He knew he was pretty good, though, especially for the training he’d had. He and Francis moved around so much that he got his earthbending classes piecemeal. He could do the flying rock punch, and raising a stone wall from the ground, and he could smooth a road or make a bridge over a stream or a collapsed part of a mountain road. He could even, if he took his shoes off and had a couple minutes to concentrate, tell if the surrounding area was unstable or not.

_That_ one he’d had to learn himself. He wasn’t sure if it was a formal earthbending form that he’d just come across or if it was something new or something that just didn’t get taught, but he’d figured it out after a late evening escape two years ago. The village’s fields had flash-flooded, and the villagers had decided that it was because the spirits were angry that they’d kept He-Dao Lian in food and shelter, even if it _was_ a competent swordsman who’d been serving with the bandit watch and his kid brother. They’d run away, but the footing was unstable and Francis had fallen down a rock scree, yards and yards down.

Matthew had never been so scared in his life. He’d spent two days lost in the packed, dusty rock-wastes on the edge of the Si Wong Desert totally lost and alone and convinced that Francis had _died._

For those two days, he’d really _hated_ Earth. 

The lesson that day finished with a pile of junk rock pulled up from the fields and thrown out of the little nearby quarry. One of the teacher’s friends delivered it on a big wagon and dumped it at the edge of the practice field, and Matthew and the others had to bend it away, lifting the rocks into the air and setting them down somewhere else or shifting them to the side.

“It’ll help you in the quarry, or in the refinery’s mines,” the teacher told them when one of the other students complained. “Do you want to be able to rescue people and equipment from a rock fall or not?”

Matthew liked the motion that shifted the rocks aside- firm stance on the ground, as always, but then you put your arms straight out in front of you and pressed your hands palm-to-palm for a second before spreading them wide apart.

“Hey!” the student next to him complained. “You’re getting in my _space,_ Li Pin!”

“Sorry,” Matthew muttered, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t in the other boy’s space at _all._

The form was working, but even though Matthew liked this better than the rock-lifting that he’d had other teachers say was more technically challenging and proved your skill through strength and finesse, something seemed sort of weird about it.

He stepped back a moment to think about it. The teacher was concentrating on the older students, who were doing the rock-lifting instead, to make sure that they didn’t drop the rocks on top of anyone on accident; so he could stop briefly without getting yelled at.

After a bit of consideration, Matthew stepped back up into his spot and held his arms out again. This time, though, he held his hands together palms-out. The twist at the elbow to put his hands back-to-back was a little uncomfortable, but now the motion felt more like he was scooping away rather pushing with the backs of his hands.

A bunch more rock moved than before.

_“Li Pin!”_ the teacher shouted, and Matthew refused to wince.

* * *

“Big commotion about you at the lunch shop today,” Francis said off-handedly after they’d sat down for dinner.

“I didn’t _mean_ to, Francis,” Matthew said. “I know we’re supposed to try not to cause trouble-”

“Ah ah,” his brother cut him off. “ _You_ didn’t cause any trouble, _cher._ It was the _fān sìdà_ who got all worked up over a Jiāomàn boy being smart enough to modify a form! Just- practice _your_ way on the road, and the teacher’s way during lessons.”

Matthew had already figured that much out. It was just like not writing in _sānzú_ in the _fān sìdà_ schools; only the schools were _worse._

He _hated_ the _fān sìdà_ schools. Having to _talk_ was already bad enough, because he could _hear_ the tonal differences in _fānwén_ , but every time he tried to speak it people looked at him like he was _stupid_ because they couldn’t figure out what he’d said because he did the tone wrong and said something totally different or he only _thought_ he’d done it and hadn’t actually said a word at all and it wasn’t _fair._ He and Francis could talk in _sānzú_ just fine, and he could talk about _sānzú_ things with the _fānwén-_ type words with the tones perfectly well.

Reading and writing was terrible, too. Once again, Matthew could read and write _sānzú_ just as good as any other _sānzú_ kid his age- or at least he thought so. He’d never actually _met_ another _sānzú_ kid.

_Sānzú_ made _sense._ You had one character for each sound and sometimes you had to remember that two characters together made them both sound a bit different- sometimes a _lot_ different- but you usually didn’t confuse the words. _Fānwén_ had _so many_ characters because they had so few sounds that all had to be written really different and there were actual thousands of them.

_Francis_ could read and write and speak _fānwén_ just as well as any _fān sìdà_ they’d ever met. _Matthew_ was even worse at reading and writing than kids they’d met who were half his age. He could read and write his and Francis’s _wèifān_ names- Li Pin Hei Daolian and Fa Ren Daolian- and he knew how to write _‘sānzú’_ and both forms of He-Dao Lian and the names of the spirits and the _sānzú_ clans and _‘fān’_ , since _‘fān’_ was _‘foreigner’_ and he had to remember that when _fān sìdà_ said it, they weren’t talking about themselves.

They meant _him,_ and Francis; and when it was written it usually came before a refusal to put them up for the night or an inflated price on food and when it was said it usually meant that Francis was going to get the day’s work done as fast as he could and then they’d be leaving, even if it meant only walking for half an hour to get past the village’s field lands before making a camp.

That was it, though- only twenty-two words, some number more of characters, and most of them were names. It was hardly literacy, and the schoolteachers never passed up a chance to make sure he remembered that.

Two days ago, the village school had actually had a language test. Matthew had _tried,_ but it had still come back from the teacher with an attached sheet detailing everything he’d done wrong.

Not that that _helped._ The teacher, just like all the others, had used _fānwén_ to document in writing how utterly illiterate he was in _fānwén._ Even if he really _wanted_ to learn what he’d done wrong, and fix it, he wouldn’t have been able to. He’d have had to show it Francis so Francis could read it to him; and he hadn’t done that because Francis had to have jobs all the time so they’d have money to eat and fix their clothes and shoes and keep up his sword and there was only the two of them so Francis didn’t have time to teach him like you were supposed to do with family when you were on the road and he didn’t want his brother to feel bad-

Francis set the language test down on the table, and Matthew ducked his head, hiding in his hair.

He heard his brother sigh.

“Were you going to tell me about this, Matthew?”

He didn’t say anything. You weren’t supposed to lie, but silence was a good enough answer when you didn’t want to _say._

He heard Francis sigh again. 

“It’s not your fault,” Matthew said, still not looking up. “You’ve got to be busy all the time.”

“But you have to _learn,_ ” Francis said. “I know it’s hard to keep up your lessons at the schools and with so many different earthbending teachers, but-”

“It’s just the _school_ that’s hard!” Matthew told him, lifting his head again. “The earthbending isn’t, and I can practice that anywhere; and I’m pretty good at that and that’s the one that has to be better anyway!”

His brother looked at him funny.

“Oh?”

“It doesn’t matter that much if I can read and write okay,” Matthew explained. “Or at all. I’m never going to be a scholar or have a job as a scribe; and it’s not like we’re going to split up so if anything needs reading or writing _you_ can do it. But the sooner I can get good enough at earthbending that I can get hired for it-”

“You’re _eight,_ Matthew-”

“And I _can_ get good young! I know the stories from school! Toph Beifong was like my age when she fought in the war! And Avatar Aang was only a little older! Even if it takes until I’m thirteen for people to really think about giving me real money-”

“Matthew-”

“They’d pay me more than they’d pay you anyway, Francis, since I’d be doing bending; and then you wouldn’t have to work so much and we’d have more money-”

“Matthew,” Francis said a third time. “No.”

“But-”

“ _No._ If something happens to me- if that rock scree two years ago had been fatal? If the _fān sìdà_ get me in the next town we have to run away from? If there are bandits on the road? You have to know at least enough to be able to read a map, and street signs and store signs, and an employment contract.”

“But we can’t stay in one place for me to learn,” Matthew argued. “And I haven’t been learning any of it traveling around like this all the time, so why should we expect me to learn anything in the future?”

“There is one place we could go,” Francis said. “And I think we should, so you actually learn how to _read,_ if not write. The _jùsānzú_ in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Certainly some readers will protest that it is impossible to not be of the spirits- after all, the He-Dao Lian live in the world, and the Avatar is the World Spirit, so it necessarily follows that they have share in this._

_I shall clarify my previous statement thus: the spirits of the He-Dao Lian are not the spirits of the rest of us._

_Those of you with the fortune to know something of the He-Dao Lian may find yourself surprised. Perhaps you have encountered He-Dao Lian at the regular shrines and temples to spirits local and great, or heard He-Dao Lian swear by Tui and La, or Oma and Shu, or Agni. In this as with many things, I have learned, what the He-Dao Lian appear to be to outsiders is not necessarily the same as they are amongst themselves. This is done, not out of an impulse to lie or deceive; but out of the fear that yet more signs of difference will be enough excuse for them to become targets._

_The He-Dao Lian call the spirits as a whole they call the Yàohēi; but firmer distinctions are made. The translation of Yào Yàohēi is usually given as the ‘Bright Spirits’ or the ‘Present Spirits’. These are the spirits that we are familiar with- Tui and La, Oma and Shu, Agni, the World Spirit of the Avatar, and the innumerable lesser spirits of this world. Surprisingly, there is one Yào Yàohēi that is popular with the He-Dao Lian- the Blue Spirit, or Dark Water Spirit, called Heishui Long or Lan Shenling by the He-Dao Lian, who was known mainly in the Fire Nation before his intervention on behalf of Avatar Aang in Pohuai Stronghold, has a very old cult following amongst them._

_In contrast to the Yào Yàohēi are the Hēi Yàohēi, the ‘Hidden Spirits’ or the ‘Far-Off Spirits’. These are the spirits of the He-Dao Lian; and there are many stories of them, so I have been told, that they tell only amongst themselves, not even to hăoyŏu. As such, I apologize for any misinformation or apparent gaps in what is presented here._

_The ‘closest’ of the Hēi Yàohēi are Xia Mata, her husband Tu Ran, and their children Wangren, Junren, and Ruiko. Xia Mata and Tu Ran are sometimes honored under the guise of Oma and Shu. Tu Ran is known as ‘Spark of the Earth’, and is regarded as the spirit of the earth and Earth as a whole. Prayers about marriage, family, and fertility are addressed most often to him. In this case a plausible link exists between the two spirits; but this is not so with Xia Mata._

_Xia Mata is known as ‘Wandering Hero of Her Mother’, or in another aspect by the title Heikaita- ‘Victorious Spirit’ or ‘Protecting Spirit’, depending on the spelling. The He-Dao Lian say that she was a dragon who became human, much as the main characters of_ Love Amongst the Dragons- _only out of choice, rather than any curse._

_How and why Xia Mata became human I do not know, but I do know that her mother is Ma Ri, ‘Mother Sun’, who created this world and every life in it. She gave birth to Xia Mata by Luokai, ‘Clever Protector’. He is often portrayed in the stories as a trickster figure, who rescues He-Dao Lian from dangerous situations through his cleverness, either when Xia Mata’s more direct, violent methods have failed, or she is otherwise occupied, or they would not be appropriate. More importantly, though, he is a spirit of intelligence, craftsmanship, and learning. It is he, the He-Dao Lian say, who taught humans of the existence of all the arts and sciences. Either Ma Ri or Luokai may be honored as Agni._

_Ma Ri, like her daughter, has another aspect. As her title Heikaota, ‘Torturing Spirit’ or ‘Examining Spirit’, she puts challenges to all humans- but the He-Dao Lian in particular- both great and small, to see if they have learned how to live with honor and rightness. These tests are overseen by Ji Li Ta, ‘She Whom We Celebrate’ or ‘She To Whom We Give Sacrificial Rites’, who keeps watch over the entire world and reincarnates souls._

_The final Hēi Yàohēi is Luo-Na-Tian, whose title has not been told to me. In stories she is primarily responsible for storms, but more generally, she is a spirit of the sea, the sky, and the heavens. Unsurprisingly, Luo-Na-Tian is often portrayed as Tui or La, or Tui_ and _La._

_Xia Mata and Tu Ran’s three children became the honored ancestral founders of the three clans of the He-Dao Lian. Wangren and Junren, the two eldest, twin boys, married, respectively, Luo-Na-Tian and Ji Li Ta. From Wangren and Luo-Na-Tian came the Shiya-na. From Junren and Ji Li Ta came the Jiaoman-na. The identity of the husband of the youngest sibling, only daughter Ruiko, is one of the secret stories. From Ruiko came the Ruoman-na._

_From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

“Shh, shh,” Gilbert attempted to hush the baby he was holding, and tried bouncing him a little.

No luck.

“Gilbert?” Elizaveta asked.

“I’m trying, I’m _trying,_ ” he told her. “But he won’t settle! I’m worried he got ash in his lungs.”

“Let me see,” Roderich said, holding his hands out.

Gilbert didn’t much want to let go of his baby cousin- Ludwig was all the family he had left, now- but Roderich was the closest thing they had to a doctor. He’d been _educated._ He’d even broken through to the Middle Ring from the Lower Ring _jùsānzú_ to get some instruction at Ba Sing Se University.

Roderich poked Ludwig for a few minutes, listening to his breathing and the sounds light impacts made on the baby’s chest.

“He was a premature birth, wasn’t he?”

“Almost a month early,” Gilbert affirmed. “ _Gēshŏu_ Herakles said, when he didn’t die those first two weeks, that Mā Rí and Jì Lĭ Tā must have something in mind for him.”

_And it had better not be dying of ash inhalation!_

“There _is_ something wrong with his breathing,” Roderich told him. “But I don’t know if it’s from being born prematurely or from ash he might have taken in. We’re going to need a real doctor, a real healer.”

The problem with the road from Ba Sing Se wasn’t that there weren’t any towns or villages- even smaller cities.

The problem was that it was a _trade road,_ so no one was willing to have any more _sānzú_ than what they already had.

Especially not _sānzú_ who were _fleeing_ Ba Sing Se. News of what had happened traveled faster than they could, on foot.

Every night they couldn’t get lodging, ever night after a day of being turned away at city gates or the edge of town by a village guard, Roderich gave Ludwig a progressively longer worried look.

“If we don’t find someone before we get to Serpent’s Pass,” he said, after five days on the road; and then never finished the sentence.

They got to the East Lake Ferry Landing a few days later. It was about a day and a half’s walk from East Lake to West Lake, where they were planning to depart from, but the road swung down to East Lake first.

“Names,” East Lake’s gate guard said perfunctorily.

“Shihei Daolian,” Elizaveta told him. “And my husband Mingquan.”

Gilbert wondered if she ever hated having to give her _wèifān_. She had green eyes, like most people in the Earth Kingdom, and if her particular shade of brown was a bit light, well, the proper hairstyle and clothes could make people overlook a lot of things. She even spoke _fānwén_ perfectly, without the flattening accent that usually dogged _sānzú_ for their entire lives.

But her _wèifān-_ with the common _sānzú_ ending _‘hēi’_ to honor the Hēi Yàohēi, and the _‘Daolian’_ that legally forced on every _sānzú-_ gave her away every time.

Roderich could _almost_ pass. His hair was the proper dark brown, and so long as he wore the right shades of green or gray or dun tan and stayed out of direct sunlight or firelight, his otherwise-purple eyes would pass, on a casual look, for a dark gray, or a rather nasty variety of brown, or even black. His _fānwén_ was also flawless, and _‘Mingquan’_ wasn’t even a particularly _sānzú_ name.

Gilbert would never pass.

“Shiyao Daolian,” he told the guard, who avoided looking at him as he clutched a luck-charm or spirit-blessing tag hanging from the belt of his uniform. Typical. “And my little brother Mingzhan.”

 _Fān sìdà_ thought all the _sānzú_ were related that closely _anyway._ No one would ever know that Ludwig _wasn’t_ actually his brother.

“Babies don’t matter,” the guard said, and fixed his eyes back on Elizaveta. “Business?”

“Food,” Elizaveta told him. “And a healer to look at the baby.”

The guard let them through without any more questioning, and a traditional saying about the wandering _sānzú_ sprang to the front of Gilbert’s mind.

 _Why do the wandering families of the Three Clans have so many children?_ he remembered his mother asking. _Because claiming a sick baby or young child is an easy way to trick your way past the gates._

The food was easy. The healer was harder.

Not impossible, thank the spirits. This was a ferry town, so there were a number of healers around the docks or the wall-edge of East Lake Ferry Landing who were meant to deal with unwanted travelers- so _sānzú,_ and anyone who came off the ferry sick.

They finally found one near the wall who didn’t slam the door in their face when the head healer saw Gilbert.

“ _You_ can’t come in,” was what the head healer did say, pointing balefully at him. “I won’t have someone spirit-cursed in a place of healing! We have to preserve the balance of the spiritual energies, or no one will get better!”

Gilbert had been hearing this all his life, and, personally, thought it a pile of bullshit. People just didn’t like that he was _sānzú,_ and looked so ostentatiously _different_ on top of that.

Silently, he passed Ludwig over to Elizaveta, and went around to the side alley next to the healer’s building to sit down.

“Well-met on the road, brother,” an unfamiliar voice said.

That was common _sānzú,_ though, the particular dialect that was used for communication across clan lines; and that was the traditional greeting of wandering _sānzú._

Gilbert looked up.

The man standing in the mouth of the alleyway was blonde, with his shoulder-length hair pulled back in the style of the Water Tribes, or Kyoshi Island. He had a straight sword on his hip, and was dressed in the warm yellows and dun tans with brown and green accents of someone who’d just gotten off the ferry from the edge of Si Wong Desert.

“Under Mā Rí’s light, it is indeed,” Gilbert told him, providing the traditional reply.

“So,” the man said, leaning up against the wall. “I hear you have a brother in the care of the healers? I was just in, alas. Matthew- my little brother- he picked up a cough on the ferry across. I blame the wet. He is a child of the deserts and the dusty rock wastes. Water is no good for him, in large amounts.”

“So you really _are_ from Si Wong?” Gilbert asked.

The man sighed, a tad too theatrically.

“Ah, such a question,” he said. “ _I_ was born near Gaoling, on my family’s land. We were forced out near the end of the war, and my parents and sisters were, unfortunately, the target of bandits.”

“Gaoling, huh?” Gilbert said. “You’re Shíyà-nà, then?”

“No,” the man told him, shaking his head. “Our mother was Jiāomàn-nà, and my father Ruòmàn-nà. Though there may be southern Shíyà blood in us somewhere, I suppose.”

Oh, mixed clan. He was a little surprised the man admitted to it that readily- in Ba Sing Se, the _sānzú_ clans had clumped together pretty tightly, and mostly avoided marrying across lines. Maybe it was different for the wandering _sānzú._

“Roderich and Ludwig and I are Jiāomàn,” Gilbert told him. “Elizaveta’s northern Shíyà, from up by the Western Air Temple coast. Earth Kingdom, though, not United Republic.”

“Ah, family then!” the man said happily. “Well, cousin- I am Francis Bonnefoy.”

“Gilbert Beilschmidt.”

“Are you going to Ba Sing Se then, too, Gilbert?”

Why would he- oh, right. It had sounded like Francis had gotten off the ferry and come straight here with Matthew. They wouldn’t have heard the news, stuck out in the middle of East Lake.

“Avatar Aang died last week,” Gilbert told him. “A bunch of the Triad _fān sìdà_ took the occasion to band together and set their firebenders to the _jùsānzú_ in Ba Sing Se. The parts that weren’t actively falling down from being on fire were being helped along by some Triad earthbenders by the time we managed to get out.”

“Hēikăitā and Hēikăotā,” Francis whispered, eyes wide. “How many got out?”

Gilbert shrugged, and tried to act like everything was okay.

“Haven’t met anyone else on the road,” he said. “But maybe they all figured they’d go to Xiānbīn, or to the northern Shíyà on this side of the world, instead of follow us idiots across an entire continent full of _fān sìdà._ Or maybe they’re all behind us.”

“Across the entire-” Francis started to ask. “Oh. You’re going to Republic City?”

“ _Hēikăotā,_ no!” Gilbert exclaimed. “The Triads _came_ from Republic City! Elizaveta was born at Jingfen Abbey, back when her family was still traveling- she’s got clan-connections in Yu Dao. _That’s_ where were going. Republic City has to be on the _way,_ unfortunately; but we’ll only be there as long as it takes for the next boat to leave. If I have it my way, we won’t even have to set foot on land until we get to Mo Ce Harbor!”

Francis tried to crack a smile. It was too weak to be convincing.

“Well,” he said. “It seems our ancestors _are_ watching out for us. I shall have to burn incense for Jì Lĭ Tā for making it so that Matthew caught that cough. Otherwise we’d be on the road to Ba Sing Se tomorrow, and my only worry would be that there wouldn’t be a _sānzú_ teacher with space empty in their class to take Matthew in and finally teach him _fānwén_.”

Francis had been going to Ba Sing Se to find someone to teach Matthew _fānwén_?

He was in danger of ending up taking _Gēshŏu_ Herakles’s word _very_ seriously. He and Ludwig had gotten out of Ba Sing Se, fallen in with the best-educated and best-passing _sānzú_ in all of Ba Sing Se, who could get them places no _fān sìdà_ would _ever_ let someone who looked like him; and then Ludwig ended up with some breathing problem that dropped them straight in the path of a _sānzú_ swordsman who could probably take Elizaveta, and would have walked into the deathtrap that Ba Sing Se was sure to be for _sānzú_ for some months left to come, _and_ who needed a teacher for his brother?

Jì Lĭ Tā was going to be getting a _lot_ of incense; and he was going to have to make sure Ludwig grew up knowing _exactly_ which of the Hēi Yàohēi was looking out for him.

“You know,” Gilbert told Francis. “Roderich just so happens to have been the best _sānzú_ teacher in Ba Sing Se. You really should hear him and Elizaveta trying to pass for Earth Kingdom sometime. It’s uncanny.”


	3. Chapter 3

_He-Dao Lian, as has already been touched upon, though not explicitly stated, is not the name they use for themselves; but the one we have given them. I do not know what the name is in each of the clan dialects, but in the common dialect, which incorporates many words and phrases identifiable to our ears, they call themselves_ sānzú _\- the Three Clans. In the interests of politeness, it would have behooved me in this text to refer to them as such; but this book is for the people they call_ fēn sìbà- _a general term that encompasses anything not_ sānzú. _The literal translation, when expressed in our own characters, is ‘Foreigners of the Four Elements’_.

 _I find, that as a_ hăoyŏu- _a trusted_ fēn sìbà- _it is my duty to provide the more proper name; but also to promote the best understanding amongst non-_ sānzú _readership. As such, we shall return to speaking of these people as the He-Dao Lian._

_The three clans of the He-Dao Lian are, in order of age, the Jiaoman-na, the Shiya-na, and the Ruoman-na. As much as they have any homeland, they have what they call Xianbin- the far eastern sea coast of the spur of land that forms Chameleon Bay, north of the Eastern Air Temple. A number of He-Dao Lian spend their entire lives here. All would be well, but for the fact that past Earth Kingdom conquests have compressed their land from the entire spur to an outward-swelling sliver on the coast, and one rocky, forested island that is more akin to mountain slopes than anything. The He-Dao Lian have long been too numerous to easily populate Xianbin- and so formed the clans._

_Those of the He-Dao Lian who remained in Xianbin are usually grouped with the Jiaoman-na, but most of Jiaoman live their lives scattered, wandering throughout the Earth Kingdom, particularly on the edges of the Si Wong Desert. For many decades, Ba Sing Se had a large, thriving community of settled He-Dao Lian made mostly of Jiaoman-na; but a conflagration the day after Avatar Aang’s death destroyed this community, and killed almost all of the He-Dao Lian living there. Common wisdom holds that the Jiaoman-na got their name from the large numbers of them in Ba Sing Se, and the tradition of scholarship and arts that arose there- the name of the clan is usually given as ‘The Free People of the Teachings’._

_The Shiya-na went somewhat further afield than the Jiaoman-na. They are mostly found on the islands between the South Pole and the Earth Kingdom, and the northern coast of the Earth Kingdom. Their proximity to the Water Tribes and their culture is usually given as the reason for their name- ‘The People of Ivory Decorations’. However, the same characters can be interpreted a different way- ‘The People Who Conceal Their Teeth’. This name is given usually as a part of history, as formerly much of Shiya lived in small villages hidden in the Air Nomads’ mountains, far enough away from the Temples to escape most notice, but near enough that it was wise to refrain from showing any particular martial skill. Since the destruction of the Nomads by Fire Lord Sozin, the Shiya have ventured further and further into the mountains, both reclaiming old villages and creating new ones._

_The last of the three clans is Ruoman-na, ‘The Free-Burning People’. They are the easiest-overlooked despite their much more ubiquitous and integrated presence amongst the rest of us. The Ruoman-na have traditionally moved about the Fire Nation, and the advent of the Earth Kingdom colonies during the beginning of the Hundred Year War- though a source of great anger and contention- was good for the Ruoman-na, as was Fire Nation conquest in general for all the He-Dao Lian. The Ruoman-na often resemble the Fire Nation with their brown and honey-brown eyes, and those born among them with green or more hazel eyes to go with the variety of shades of brown or black hair were easily lost in the Fire Nation colonies, assumed to be the children of mixed families. Many of the Ruoman-na have migrated to the former colonies in the United Republic and settled down, rather than try to stave off disaster, ruin, and heartbreak as have the majority of their cousin-clans by remaining mobile and nomadic, so that no one may take their homes from them._

_From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

“Sister.”

Yekateryna looked up from where she was sweeping out the main temple room. Natalya was standing in the doorway, Marcus half-visible through the doorway behind her, and then behind him-

Yekateryna put the broom aside and motioned for them to come in. Natalya, little _gēshŏu_ -in-training that she was, got the newcomers situated in front of one of the shrine grottos.

 “They’re _yuāntáo,_ ” Marcus told her quietly, stopping her from following the newcomers with a hand on her arm. “There are three others- a Francis Bonnefoy, a _xiázú,_ Roderich Edelstein, a teacher; and Elizaveta Héderváry. I’m putting them all up at my house.”

“The Shíyà Hédervárys?” Yekateryna asked. “From _here?_ ”

He nodded; and she searched her memory.

“The only Héderváry woman I remember striking out to Jiāomàn territory on her own was going to Ba Sing Se,” she said after a couple of moments.

“That was her,” Marcus said. “Yekateryna, they’re _yuāntáo_ because they ran from Ba Sing Se with the inferno of the _jùsānzú_ at their backs.”

“Not _Ba Sing Se_.”

“They said that once they got to Republic City, the news was that they were still finding bodies in the Lower Ring. The fire spread out of the _jùsānzú,_ but nobody really died besides in our-”

“Even the Dai Li didn’t kick us out of Ba Sing Se!” Yekateryna exploded. “Hēikăotā take them, Marcus! The Dai Li never even _tried!_ So long as we kept our mouths shut, just like everyone else-”

“I know, I know,” Marcus said. “The Dai Li have always been tolerant of us; but the Republic City Triads made it past the walls of Ba Sing Se.”

“The _Triads,_ ” she spat. “Of _course_ it was the Triads! Let me guess- waterbenders to stop up the wells and the pipes, earthbenders to block the doors and the streets, and firebenders to start it.”

“I’d imagine,” Marcus said. “But I don’t know. The only radio or newspaper reports I can find from Republic City are saying that the Ba Sing Se police are saying that it was _sānzú_ gangs having a turf war with the Triads. _‘Exploiting the period of mourning for Avatar Aang’_ was the phrase. Something about assuming that the police would be understaffed because of the temple day.”

“Do me a favor, Marcus,” Yekateryna told him. “Make sure your _yuāntáo_ don’t hear those reports.”

“They already have,” he said. “Well, Elizaveta and Roderich and Francis have. I think they were keeping it from Matthew- Francis’s little brother- and Gilbert. Gilbert’s young still and the only family he has left now is that baby and he’s been sick-”

Sick babies she could _do_ something about.

“Go make sure everything is set up at your house,” she ordered him. “Send Lovino over when it is, and I’ll have the others go back with him. And instructions about what to do for the baby.”

She turned on her heel and went to kneel on the floor in front of the shrine grotto. They’d picked Jì Lĭ Tā’s shrine, and Yekateryna wondered why. Usually, people with sick babies asked for Ma Rí. Jì Lĭ Tā was more for people who were dying-

“How long has he been coughing like that?” she asked.

“Since we got out of Ba Sing Se,” the man- no, he only _looked_ old at first glance because of the white hair. This was a teenager, a boy still. “I thought he might have gotten ash in his lungs or something and when we got to East Lake Ferry the healer there said it might have been but she was more worried that he’d gotten some too-hot air and scorched something and she gave me some things for him and he was okay while he was taking it but then after it was all gone he started again and we hadn’t even gotten to Republic City yet but I didn’t want to go looking for another healer because I’d only be able to find one in Triad territory-”

Yekateryna gently shushed him, and tried to get useful information. Did he know what it was the healer had given the baby?

No, just handed it over. She’d wanted them out of her clinic.

What did it look like? Smell like? What had the dosage been?

Eventually, she had to give up on determining the medicine.

“A finger bowl, Natalya,” she told her little sister.

Gilbert looked at her in mild confusion for a moment, but his expression cleared when Natalya padded silently back with the little bowl of water.

“You’re a _bending_ healer!”

“Yes,” Yekateryna said, wetting the tips of her fingers. “Put your brother down on the floor, please. I’m going to see if I can get into his lungs.”

* * *

Elizaveta hadn’t thought she still thought of Yu Dao as _‘home’_ ; but it had been so _nice_ to walk through streets she knew and smell the foods she’d grown up around and hear the _fānwén_ accents she’d learned the language in first.

And for the _Vargases_ to take them in-

Well, it certainly wasn’t a _bad_ thing. She’d just been expecting her own people to.

“The Hédervárys have moved more east since you left,” Marcus Vargas told her apologetically, over tea, after he’d taken Gilbert and Ludwig to the Yu Dao _jùsānzú_ ’s shrine temple. “Almost into Braginski territory. The Braginskis lost their best healer and _gēshŏu_ to city life here, so-”

He shrugged.

“Why move to Yu Dao?” Roderich asked. “The Braginskis have independent _jùsānzú_ on the western edge of the Northern Temple Mountains, don’t they? The healer could have-”

“Yekateryna is looking after her younger sister and her baby brother,” Marcus said. “Natalya and Ivan. Natalya is a _gōngyùnǚ_.”

“Oh,” Roderich said quietly, and then stopped talking in a way that Elizaveta knew meant he was sitting on a thought, waiting for it to develop.

“Really?” Francis asked, sounding intrigued. “I’ve _heard_ of _gōngyùnǚ_ and _gōngyùrén_ , but there weren’t any in Gaoling. At least not that I remember.”

“Yu Dao has been the place for _gōngyù_ to come for two hundred years!” Marcus told him brightly. “We have a lot who come through here. Mostly they do leave after their five years are over, but some of them stay.”

“We had _gōngyù_ in Ba Sing Se,” Roderich said. “Many of them came on their five years from here, or from Xībān. You said younger sister- _how_ young, that Héderváry left to maintain the balance?”

“Natalya is six now,” Marcus said. “She was four-and-a-half when she came.”

“ _That_ young?” Elizaveta asked. “If they’re not old enough to marry yet the family is allowed to keep them until then!”

Marcus shrugged.

“Yekateryna is a waterbending healer and a _gēshŏu._ It was already clear that Natalya was meant to be a _gēshŏu_ as well, and she had bent already. It was too much good fortune, once Natalya satisfied the other _gēshŏu_ that she was _gōngyùnǚ_ , for the Braginskis to risk Hēikăotā’s attention to balance the good with the bad by not letting them go. But it worked out for us! Yekateryna is a wonderful woman and Natalya will be as well, after her; and Natalya will be trained as a _xiázú_ in the bargain! Héderváry moving on is a small price to pay for the Yu Dao _jùsānzú_ to have such a blessed woman, for however long Natalya decides to stay.”

“You train _xiázú_ here?” Francis asked, and Elizaveta reached over to punch him in the arm.

“Hey, where did you think _I_ learned?” she asked him.

“I just thought _every_ family had a _jiànrèn_ ,” he said.

“Hardly,” Roderich told him.

“Well,” Marcus said. “Maybe not with Shíyà and Jiāomàn. But Ruòmàn has _always_ trained _xiázú_ each generation of a family. We live amongst the Fire Nation, after all.”

“But my father always told me that the Fire Nation was good to us,” Francis said. “Was he wrong?”

“Oh, we never trained _xiázú_ to fight the _Fire Nation,_ ” Marcus told them. “They _would_ fight if we got attacked, but the _fān sìdà_ here understand. The Fire Nation has a long old tradition of training family warriors, benders and non-benders. We took the idea from them, actually. Our family warriors even train together sometimes! There are more Fire Nation _hăoyŏu_ than any other sort. I’ll have to introduce you to the Wangs sometime soon.”


	4. Chapter 4

_The relatively settled and integrated nature of the Ruoman-na, however, should not be taken to mean that they are the most easily-cowed, or the most defenseless. This dubious honor of being the least threatening to attackers fell to the He-Dao Lian of Ba Sing Se, who flourished under the autocratic and iron-handed administration of the Dai Li during the Hundred Year War. The Dai Li, while not being favorably biased to the He-Dao Lian in any way, treated them exactly as well as any of the other refugee groups in the city, and gave them the same protection. The promise of social order and harmony protected the He-Dao Lian in Ba Sing Se for generations._

_What those He-Dao Lian lost that the Ruoman-na, the Shiya-na, and the wandering Jiaoman-na kept were the xiazu- specially-trained family warriors in the style of the Fire Nation. Unlike the family warriors of the Fire Nation- with the exception of former Princess Azula’s abuses of power and influence- the xiazu are expected to defend any He-Dao Lian who comes to them in need of assistance from outsiders, rather than to defend their family from other He-Dao Lian._

_The Ruoman-na, on the contrary, found that relatively settled and integrated life in the Fire Nation, and then later in the colonies, meant that they stood out_ less _for openly training and displaying xiazu. As such, it is not uncommon for other He-Dao Lian to send some of their number to where there are concentrations of settled Ruoman-na for training._

_I learned, growing up, that my own hometown of Yu Dao was the premier training location for xiazu, as it became the center for the Vargas Ruoman-na family in the early days of the city’s life as a colony. The Vargases are known for their collective mastery of every possible discipline of xiazu- jianren, the straight sword; daoren, the paired curved swords; daoziren, the knife, both thrown and kept in the hand; gunren, the staff; tieshanren, the war fan; shouren, unarmed combat; and sidaren, the unique He-Dao Lian bending forms for Water, Earth, Fire, and even Air._

_From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

“Fe-li-chi-ah-no,” Kiku pronounced carefully, and Feliciano smiled brightly at him.

“See?” he said. “They’re not _hard_ names. They’re just different.”

“No,” Matthew disagreed, with all the weight of experience being a teenager gave him. “That’s only for Ruòmàn names. They can’t _do_ Jiāomàn ones.”

“Bet Kiku can _too,_ ” Feliciano said. “C’mon, Kiku- Matthew. Ma-thi-ou.”

“Ma,” Kiku said, and then his tongue tangled horribly when he tried to make a _‘th’_ sound, a garbled mess coming out of his mouth.

“Told you so,” Matthew said.

Feliciano pouted at him.

“Kiku’s _hăoyŏu_ ,” he said. “If he can _know_ our names, he can _say_ them. He just needs to practice!”

 _“Practice,”_ Natalya cut in balefully, from where she was showing Ivan staff forms. “Like what _you_ are supposed to be doing?”

“ _Some_ of us are!” Lovino snapped, and lit his next pile of sticks on fire with a form-perfect punch.

Feliciano just smiled and gracefully tumbled into a spread-legged handstand, then brought his feet together and rose up, perfectly balanced, on one hand. Antonio applauded.

“ _Some_ of us,” Matthew said, crossing his arms grumpily. “Don’t need any more _training._ ”

Natalya snapped her staff out towards him, and a whip shot out from the large bowl of water she kept around during practice in case she had to heal anyone to whap him across the shoulders.

“There is _always_ room for more training,” she told him. “And _you_ are supposed to be showing Ludwig the _fān sìdà_ Earth forms. Yet, I see he’s not _here._ A good teacher _never_ loses track of their student.”

“I’m no teacher!” Matthew exploded. “I _know_ Earth, I’m old enough to work, I should be out there _doing_ something _useful!_ ”

“And teaching _xiázú_ isn’t _useful?_ ” Natalya asked frostily.

“Not _everyone_ can be a _gēshŏu_! Not _everyone_ can be a bending healer! _Some people_ need _real_ work with the _fān sìdà,_ so that when we have to run again we can support our family!”

“We will _never_ run from Yu Dao.”

_“That’s what they said about Ba Sing Se!”_

Feliciano tried to rise up even further, on just two fingers, as Matthew stormed off; but the form was shaky and he wasn’t that strong yet. He turned it into a controlled fall, and bounced back upright easily.

“Lightfoot,” Antonio said affectionately. He was supposed to be spotting Feliciano, but hadn’t moved a muscle when Feliciano had started falling, trusting that the younger boy would be able to catch himself easily.

“Me and Kiku will find Ludwig, _Gēshŏu_ Natalya,” Feliciano said. “He never goes very far.”

Today proved the exception to the rule. Natalya held bending and _xiázú_ training in her staked-out practice yard on the other side of the ditch around Yu Dao Old Town, a silent demonstration of the old Avatar’s power. The entire southeast side of the city, next to where the road that had gone through the old town gates still ran, had been kept clear for bending practice areas. The _sānzú_ had grabbed up the largest section, the one furthest-out, so that they could be left to train their _xiázú_ and benders in peace, away from staring and comments by anyone traversing the road.  

Usually, when Ludwig wandered off, Feliciano found him parked on the edge of one of the other practice grounds, knees drawn up, intently watching the grown-up _fān sìdà_ earthbenders.

He wasn’t there today. Feliciano started to fidget in worry, and tried to resist fingering the throwing knives slipped up his wide, flowing sleeves.

Yu Dao was a _safe_ place, and it was home- but Ruòmàn were the safest of the _sānzú_ out among the _fān sìdà,_ safe enough that Ruòmàn children could run around unsupervised, passing for Fire Nation children, overlooked and anonymous. Ludwig was _blonde_ and if he’d gotten spotted by some travelers or something and they decided that it would be some fun to drag a _sānzú_ child off and kick him around- Ludwig was an earthbender but he was _little_ for his age and he wasn’t _that_ well-trained yet-

Kiku gently gripped Feliciano’s arm, distracting him.

“The mountains,” Kiku said, and for a second Feliciano relaxed.

“But the _school_ is up there!” he remembered, and his heart started racing. “Oh no _Kiku,_ that’s the _police academy-_ ”

And Ludwig _would_ be there. He was always, in his quiet, intense way, after the bending form scrolls the temple kept; and sometimes he imitated the firebending forms Lovino and Kiku were learning; and even tried some of the _shŏurèn_ forms that Feliciano was practicing like the basic chi-blocking stuff, no matter that Ludwig was too slow and liked keeping his feet solidly on the ground too much to really be any good at them.

If the metalbenders up at Bei Fong didn’t like a _sānzú_ child watching them- Feliciano would rather they got up there before anyone noticed Ludwig.  

It was a climb up the mountain to the Bei Fong Metalbending Academy, made that much harder because neither of them were earthbenders. It was some time until they reached the edge of the property.

A group of trainees were out in the yard, clustered around Ludwig, looking down at him.

Ludwig looked up at the two of them, and smiled; and flicked the pebble he’d been spinning between his hands at Feliciano.

Feliciano’s _xiázú_ -trained reflexes had him catching it before he thought about it. He opened his hand to see that Ludwig hadn’t been spinning a pebble- it was a steel practice coin, with the Bei Fong boar on one side and the Metalbending Police’s crest on the other.

The two of them stared down at the glinting disc in Feliciano’s palm.

“Oh,” Kiku said quietly.

* * *

“Why are we _hăoyŏu_?”

Yao put down his chopsticks and looked across the table to his younger brother. He’d been waiting for this question for a long time.

“Why do you ask?”

He could guess some things- Kiku had been there for a lot of the negotiations that Yao had mediated between Marcus Vargas, Gilbert Beilschmidt and the chief trainer at Bei Fong to get Ludwig a proper teacher. The boy had turned out to have a natural talent for metalbending, and that was the sort of thing that, in a modern city, could turn the regular sorts of accidents that young benders had into an actual emergency. 

“Master Vargas and Gilbert wouldn’t trust the Chief Trainer from Bei Fong,” Kiku said. “Even though he was with the police. They wouldn’t do it unless _you_ were there too, because we’re _hăoyŏu._ So why are _we_ allowed to be _hăoyŏu,_ when even the police don’t get to be? They _protect_ people.”

“You remember the story of Grandmother Terasu?” Yao asked him.

Kiku nodded.

“She was from Caldera City,” he said. “She got involved with a noble, and got pregnant, and there was something about it that dishonored her family so badly that she had to leave. She claimed _‘Wang’_ as her family name, since it was the colonies, and that’s the name you took if you were leaving something shameful behind, and then had Mother.”

“Grandmother Terasu was _hēisānzú_ ,” Yao told him. “Secret He-Dao Lian. She was a firebender, and whatever noble she was involved in was as well, so no one questioned any of the small odd things about her. The war was still going when Grandmother came here, even if it was in its last years. If you were a firebender, you were Fire Nation, no matter what. Fire Lords Sozin, Azulon, Ozai- it was still illegal to not identify yourself as He-Dao Lian, because the prejudice against it ran too deep. But they never tried to root out anyone who pretended. Sometimes- there are stories Marcus Vargus could tell you, of He-Dao Lian who were caught lying, and the army _let them go_ once they’d been taken. In a new city, a new colony, with papers to say that they were who they were pretending to be. The Fire Lords _wanted_ everyone to want to be Fire Nation. Mother and her sisters grew up not knowing. Father never knew either. I was the only one who ever asked Grandmother why she would come to the colonies, take a shame-name, but yet name herself _hăoyŏu_ to the _jusānzú_ here. I don’t know what her _sānzú_ name was, and I don’t know her family. She wouldn’t tell me. She lied about her name and pretended to be Fire Nation for most of her life, and would have been executed if anyone had found out- but she couldn’t leave her people completely behind. So she named herself _hăoyŏu,_ so she’d never be completely apart from her people.”

He watched his little brother take that information in.

“Oh,” Kiku said. “Is that we’ve always had a place for offerings to the Blue Spirit on our house altar?”

Relieved that he seemed to be taking it well, Yao smiled.

“Yes, it is.”

Kiku nodded a little to himself. Yao thought that he probably didn’t realize he’d done it.

“Can I tell Ludwig and Feliciano?” he asked, pronouncing the names carefully.

“If you wish,” Yao told him. “But this is a _secret,_ Kiku. Tell only them; and never, ever speak of it around any _fān sìdà_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I haven't forgotten about this story, it's just going very very slowly.


	5. Chapter 5

_I know that the news that the He-Dao Lian have their own bending forms will come as a shock to many, but it is true. Some of the idea that the He-Dao Lian do not bend is founded in simple prejudice against them, but as most things, there is some truth to it. The He-Dao Lian have fewer benders than the other nations; and their numbers seem even less because so few train for any length of time with outsiders. Much of the reason is the fear and caution the He-Dao Lian must live with all their lives, but in other instances, it is due to their own ideas about the nations._

_Contrary to wider opinion in the world, those the He-Dao Lian have the least fear of are firebenders, and the Fire Nation as a whole. Though they committed atrocities, the goals of the Fire Nation rendered them amiable, as an institution, to the He-Dao Lian. More practically, and easily-grasped, is the simple fact that the He-Dao Lian hold that Fire is the least dangerous of the elements- you can outrun a firebender, after all; or dodge a fire ball or blast._

_They also have a mostly-positive view of earthbenders. Part of this may be born out by the long-established community of settled He-Dao Lian that once existed in Ba Sing Se, but practicalities once again have their place. Earthbenders can wreak havoc with roads, and trap feet and cart wheels, but most earthbenders will cease an assault once their opponent, or whoever they are attacking, is immobilized. Should an earthbender choose to leave a trapped victim, the application of shovels, pickaxes, or simply hands are usually sufficient to free one so attacked._

_This is where the cautious respect ends, for the He-Dao Lian have a deep-held terror of waterbenders and airbenders. There are a number of stories told among them that have a waterbender or an airbender as a monster-figure, and many of them are told as oral histories. Broadly, the waterbenders are said to be able to control your body; and airbenders to steal the breath from your lungs. In almost all stories, these benders are killers. He-Dao Lian have been known to travel miles out of their way to avoid water- or airbenders, or the rumors of them._

_And given what I have seen and heard in my life, I sadly cannot say that these stories have no basis in fact._

_From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

“Did you know,” Feliciano started to stay, and then stopped to readjust. He and Kiku had come to pick Ludwig up from the Metalbending Academy as they did every day, and sometimes it was _hard_ to remember to use people’s _wèifān_ and not their _actual_ names, even though every day it was the same thing- _fān_ _sìdà_ , _fān sìdà_ , and more _fān sìdà_. Kiku and Ludwig were _family._ You didn’t speak _fānwén_ with _family._ “Huā and Luówèi are courting?”

Ludwig tilted his head in consideration. He was tall these days, taller than both he and Kiku, but seemed strangely unfinished. People said it was because of puberty, but Feliciano didn’t think so. Ludwig had always looked a little off. Not like _Gilbert’s_ sort of looking off, but he didn’t grow like anyone else. He and Lovino had gotten taller and put on lean muscle. Antonio had gained more muscle mass before each growth spurt, and he’d looked kind of funny then but it was only in comparison to how he’d looked before. Even Kiku had only gone from small and slight to not quite as small and a little less slight. He’d put on some muscle from training with Francis, but not much. He wasn’t meant to be a _xiázú_ , not like Feliciano was. Kiku was going to be a scholar, but he was _hăoyŏu_ and that was dangerous, sometimes.

Ludwig had stayed thin and small and prone to sickness even though he’d been training in metalbending, earthbending in the _fān sìdà_ and _sìdàren_ styles, _and_ in the throwing knives half of _daoziren,_ to compliment the metalbending. There had been a lot of anxious praying to Jì Lĭ Tā about him – well, ever since he and Gilbert and Elizaveta and Roderich had shown up, really. And to Hēikăotā, though that had often enough actually been Gilbert kneeling in front of her shrine and glaring and muttering dire things under his breath about what his little brother was going to encounter in his life to demand _this._

The community had started whispering a while back. Natalya and Yekateryna were too much luck for the _sānzú._ The Hédervárys had left so that Yekateryna and Natalya and Ivan could stay. Maybe that wasn’t enough? Maybe the addition of Roderich and the relative abundance of benders and _xiázú_ in Yu Dao had caught up to them, finally.

But Feliciano didn’t like thinking about it, because it made something in the pit of his stomach squirm uncomfortably. He’d been having – _thoughts._ Fleeting things. Almost more like unexpected feelings. When he saw a woman with nice jewelry, or robes, or a dress, or hair.

Or Natalya, which was most telling. Maybe _he_ was- but surely he’d _know?_

“They weren’t already?” Ludwig finally answered.

“Oh, they _were,_ ” Feliciano confirmed. “But now it’s _official._ Lov- Luówèi says they might go to Republic City.”

“Oh dear,” Kiku said, which just about summed it up. _None_ of the adults were going to happy with that idea.

“He’d get better work, probably,” Feliciano said, and kicked a pebble off the path. It clattered against some rocks and then fell out of sight and hearing down the slope. “Firing the big factory engines and things. There’s plenty of firebenders in Yu Dao. But they say they’re always hiring benders in Republic City.”

“And Huā?” Ludwig asked.

Feliciano shrugged.

“There’s always a call for manual labor. And you know Huā enjoys it.”

Antonio did like pure physical work, that was true. But something like hauling crates or a factory line job would slot in perfectly with the act he put up around _fān sìdà_. Antonio’s _wèifān_ was truly unfortunate. _‘_ _Huā Daolian’_ was always, _always_ the stupid, bumbling one in the plays and the jokes. There was the sneaky and cowardly version, and the wide-eyed buffoon who didn’t know how _‘real’_ civilization worked, and that was it. Two variations, and no more. It was like when someone did a stage or radio play and the colonist’s family name was _‘Wang’_. 

But Antonio had a generally happy nature, and he’d been honing the act for years. He could smile at _anything._ He could do naïve-and-trusting, endearing incompetence, and childlike awe at things that weren’t really impressive. It served him well. Antonio could probably survive in Republic City. _Lovino_ was the one Feliciano was worried about. Probably everyone else, too. He had all the stereotypical temper of a firebender, and while his flames were controlled and precise and searingly deadly, his temper flared easily and often and tended to spill out all over the place and not just hit whoever was annoying him or making him mad. If you actually knew him, you knew it was a shallow sort of temper. It usually wasn’t serious and you could generally ignore it until Lovino had vented and calmed down. But he'd already been in fights with _fān sìdà_ because all _they_ saw was a _sānzú_ acting in a way they didn’t like. It had been trouble, and would have been _worse_ trouble if not for Master Wang.

It might actually be a good thing for Lovino to get out of Yu Dao. Antonio was the best and dissipating Lovino’s tempers, and maybe having a job and a place in Republic City would make him learn how to better tolerate people.

* * *

Antonio and Lovino did eventually leave, but it wasn’t until two summers later. They left halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, once it was warm enough that people were truly thinking summer and not spring. Based on the letters they sent from Republic City, they’d settled in all right and without much fuss. Lovino had found a good furnace job at a steel refinery and Antonio was taking day-by-day labor jobs as they came. Not ideal, but it meant he got to always meet people and he liked that sort of thing, and it had given him the opportunity to find out where the other _sānzú_ in Republic City were and connect with them. There weren’t many, just enough to line a block or two of road, but they’d helped Antonio scout out an apartment so he and Lovino had somewhere to live.

It was good news to have, and not only because it meant Antonio and Lovino were safe. Ludwig had been training since he was small as a metalbender, and he was quite good at it. Republic-City-police-under- _Lin-Beifong_ sort of good. But he was also _sānzú,_ and _really obviously_ so with his hair and his skin that had always looked a little washed out from him being sickly and too-thin no matter how much Gilbert made him eat. It wasn’t clear yet if someone from the Academy would sponsor him for training, or if the police would offer him a spot in the program because of his sheer skill, or if Ludwig was going to have to stop and find another place to employ his skills.

But Feliciano knew that Ludwig really kind of wanted to be a police officer under Lin Beifong and hadn’t actually properly admitted it yet. So Feliciano kept up lots of letters with Lovino and Antonio to ask about _everything_ in Republic City. If the police took Ludwig, they’d have plenty of information. And if they didn’t, well, they’d still _know_ things. And the _sānzú_ in Republic City had a connection to the older, more organized community here in Yu Dao, which could only be a good thing. Since Ba Sing Se’s had fallen apart, Yu Dao had been slowly and unsteadily emerging as the new settled center outside of Xiānbīn. Yu Dao had nothing even remotely like the cultural and intellectual clout of Ba Sing Se, but the Vargases were here and so was Roderich and nowhere else could really stand up. Maybe Republic City could, if it got big. But it wasn’t a very _safe_ place for _sānzú,_ people said.

So Feliciano also kept up frequent prayers for Lovino and Antonio’s safety. Just in case.

And.

And if that praying meant he had to be in the temple shrine. With Natalya. Then.

Well.


	6. Chapter 6

_The He-Dao Lian are never truly welcome amongst outsiders, and this reflects in the larger division of their people, outside of the clans – those who seek protection by settlement, and those who seek protection by travel._

_Most He-Dao Lian are unsettled, wanderers from place to place. The nomadic life is not truly by choice, and the customs of these families reflect this. They travel in large family groups, unless something has gone very wrong, for as any caravan master knows, there is strength in numbers against bandits. They can sometimes reach the status of very small traveling villages, with a number of individual families bound together by marriage all sharing the duties of childcare, guard duty, and finding work amongst outsiders for coin or kind. Despite the reputation of Yu Dao as a center for training_ xiázú _, it is the unsettled families who have the most use of them._ _Also in contrast to their settled cousins, these families marry across clan lines without much discussion, for on the road, they are all foreigners in hostile lands. In years past, there were a small number of He-Dao Lian families who had acquired small farms scattered across the Earth Kingdom, useful as waystops and safe harbors for their fellows on the road; but the Hundred Years’ War and the aftermath destroyed all such holdings, and those who survived left their former homes to seek out the wandering families their great-grandparents had left, or to find settled He-Dao Lian – risking the status of_ yuāntáo, _displaced He-Dao Lian, the most vulnerable of their people, to do so, rather than stay and be killed._

 _The life of settled families is rather different. They have a preference for small families, so as to attract less attention to themselves. Even within a_ jùsānzú _– a concentration of settled He-Dao Lian, often within another settlement, such as Ba Sing Se, Yu Dao, or, in more recent years, Republic City or Caldera City – they stay small so that, if threatened, they may more easily escape in city streets. The ties that bind such communities are tight, though with the relative safety of settled life as opposed to road life, the clans do not do so much mixing. This is the main source of contention between the two groups. Wandering families seeking to settle, particularly within a_ jùsānzú _, while not turned away, are not so welcome as those with pure clan backgrounds._

 _The exception to this is always those He-Dao Lian who, by the traditions and laws of their people, are required to go elsewhere. This only happens when there is a need to balance the luck – to remove a person or persons who have the spirit’s favor from one place to another, replacing them with a trade of persons or persons equal to the luck granted their new home, to avoid the necessity of bad luck coming to balance one family’s or settlement’s fortune. These lucky people are the_ gēshŏu _– the He-Dao Lian’s priests and shrinetenders – and the_ gōngyùnǚ _and_ gōngyùrén.

 _From_ On the He-Dao Lian: The Recollections and Observations of a _Hăoyŏu_  
_by Kiku of the Wang Family of Yu Dao_

* * *

Matthew had stormed out of Yu Dao, as everyone had been hoping he wouldn’t, leaving behind a heartbroken and terrified Francis, by the time Feliciano was discovered.

“Do you want to court my sister?” Ivan demanded one day, interrupting the daily, habitual prayers for Lovino and Antonio. Feliciano added Matthew in every so often, now, because a young angry _sānzú_ all alone out in the world with the _fān sìdà_ could never go well. He might even already be dead – you never knew, if they didn’t write back and a wandering family didn’t bring news.

“You are here all the time,” Ivan declared. “You are too young for it. You have to have your _fènglĭ_ first. She has had her _huánglĭ_.”

“I don’t want to court Natalya!” Feliciano protested.

“Good,” was the decisive reply. “I would have to fight you and I am bigger and you would lose.”

“I’m too fast for you.”

“I am a _xiázú too!_ ”

“ _Gunren_ ,” Feliciano said. “Not _shouren._ You might be fast with your staff, but I’m _faster._ ”

Ivan scowled. A couple years ago, it would have cute. _Now,_ he’d gotten even taller than Ludwig, and put on the muscle Yekateryna said Ludwig was just coming into.

 _“Lightfoot,”_ he muttered. “You should be courting Ludwig anyway.”

“Um.”

“Everyone _knows._ ”

“Kiku’s just as nice! And he’s my friend too!”

“So court them _both,_ ” Ivan said, exasperated. “And do not let the _fān sìdà_ know. But _everyone knows_ it is you and Ludwig, and that your father is just _waiting_ for an excuse to have Gilbert over for a holy day.”

“We haven’t even _done_ anything,” Feliciano said. “We haven’t even _talked_ about it. _Mentioned_ it.”

“You _should-_ ” Ivan began, and then stopped. Leveled another glare. “You _should not._ Ludwig is not old enough for his _fènglĭ_ _. You_ are. And you have been _stalling._ You cannot _put it off_ to _court_ him. It is not _right._ Jì Lĭ Tā will be mad, and Hēikăotā will come, and there will be bad luck, and it will be _your fault._ If you do not have your _fènglĭ_ soon, it will be just as bad. You must-”

“I’m not going to _have_ a _fènglĭ_!” Feliciano shot back, then clapped his hands over his mouth. He hadn’t- he’d been able to stay quiet about it for _so long,_ because-

Ivan was still, looming over him, staring down.

“You _must,_ ” he said quietly. A threat, as much as anything.

“I’m- I’m not going to,” Feliciano told him shakily. If he’d already said something, he had to keep going, didn’t he? “I _can’t,_ Ivan. Anymore than Natalya could. I. I have to have a _huánglĭ_.”

Ivan’s breath out was strong enough to ruffle the hair on top of Feliciano’s head.

“I am getting my sister.”

* * *

The Vargases were a rich family, particularly by _sānzú_ standards, and could afford the best _d_ _ā_ _nlán_ for their childrens’ rites of passage. You couldn’t see the way the red and blue threads of the cloth were arranged, one after the other in the weave, unless you were close to the ceremonial robe, but it made an interesting shade of purple.

Ludwig was probably close enough to see it, sitting next to Feliciano. But he was _far_ too nervous to be paying attention to that, Gilbert was certain. For someone who wanted in with the Republic City metalbenders, his nerves could be awfully touchy. His control was good enough that not even the most delicate of metal detailing on the Vargases’ tableware would warp, not even the thin wire decorations on the cup his adopted brother was holding for his friend, who’s hands still bore the carefully-painted white designs of her newly-completed _huánglĭ._

“Thoughts?” Marcus asked him.

“I knew we were coming to this,” Gilbert told the man who’d looked out for him, all these years since arriving in Yu Dao, a teenager too young to have run from Ba Sing Se on his own with a sick baby. “The whole _neighborhood_ knew we were coming to this. It’s just-”

“Beilschmidt may not be a family of any importance,” Marcus acknowledged. “But neither were Fernandez or Carriedo.”

“Fernandez and Carriedo are _ruòmàn-nà_ families,” Gilbert said.

“And a _ruòmàn-nà_ family like Vargas could not want a marriage with a _jiāomàn-nà_ family of only two, with little money and less status?” the other countered. “I have many children, so many blessings from Jì Lĭ Tā and Mā Rì. My eldest daughters have not married yet, but Vespasiana will be a strong head of the family, and Santiana already has the family business interests well in hand. Lovino is favored by Luókăi. Feliciano is _gōngyùnǚ._ Cristoforo has been training to be a _gēshŏu_ since he was a small child, and Yekateryna saw the spirits’ hand on him. My younger children-”

He shrugged.

“Who knows? If our luck turns in such a way that I must marry some for our safety and theirs, or send them away, they will know how much they are loved, and that I have left them their hearts. _Sānzú_ live hard enough as it is. I will not bring them more suffering.”

“You are a very lucky family,” Gilbert observed, with all the neutrality he could.

“And we would be a fool not to share,” Marcus said, putting his cup down with a sharp, quiet rap against the wood of the table. “I am already preeminent amongst our people in Yu Dao, and see that our luck touches as many as I can make it through the proper generosity. I will _not_ give reason for Hēikăotā to bring us bad luck as well as tests.”

“Feliciano will have to take a five-year somewhere else,” Gilbert observed after a moment. “She’s an adult now.”

Both men watched Feliciano, at the head of the table, and Ludwig to her right, continuing to help her keep her paint from smudging against the tableware or her robes.

“She’s had her _huánglĭ_ late enough that it isn’t too long before Ludwig will undergo his own rites,” Marcus said. “I can keep her that long. We have spread our luck enough that I can hope that prayer, and a vow I will take to send her away once she is married, will be enough.”

“You’d wait for him?”

“My daughter would,” Marcus said. “So will I.”

He smiled.

“Besides! He’ll be going to Republic City! With the _metalbending police,_ no less! That sort of luck is quite something.”

“Jì Lĭ Tā favors him,” Gilbert reminded him, with only a dark edge of unspoken reminder of _why_ his brother had required that favor. As far as _he_ was concerned, Ludwig was _owed_ some luck.

“That she does,” Marcus agreed. “And with a _gōngyùnǚ_ wife? Ludwig will need that sort of luck in Republic City. We’re still _sānzú_.”

“I’d hope he wouldn’t need that much,” Gilbert said – but the memory of set fires in Ba Sing Se the day Avatar Aang had died were never far, nor the accompanying ash and hot air and the sound of Ludwig’s tiny coughing.

“I hope that too,” Marcus said. “And I’ll pray for it. If things are kind and the spirits are generous, he won’t need that much, and neither will Feliciano. They’ll have enough to spread around the others.”

Gilbert gave him a sharp look.

“Like the Vargases have here.”

“She’ll be Beilschmidt as much as Vargas,” the older man pointed out mildly. “And _‘Beilschmidt’_ will be the name that our people in Republic City will know. I wouldn’t risk my family like that. Hubris is a downfall, and even our luck wouldn’t spread that far.”

“Are there that many in Republic City who need it?” Gilbert asked. “Lovino and Antonio are there, but the Triads-”

“Not everyone can come to Yu Dao, or go back to Xiānbīn,” Marcus said. “After Ba Sing Se, most weren’t as fortunate as you. Republic City was big enough.”

“There’s not a _jùsānzú_ there,” Gilbert countered. “Not _really._ ”

“There could be. There _should_ be. We lost much, when we lost Ba Sing Se. We could lose Yu Dao. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon – but we all thought we’d keep Ba Sing Se. More is always better, and Republic City is where the best opportunities are.”

Marcus looked at him, golden-brown eyes sharp.

“My family is safe here, and has been for generations now,” he told Gilbert. “I have luck enough to share. I’ve shared it with Yu Dao, and I’d share it with those of the _sānzú_ who need it most.”

Gilbert looked away. Marcus wasn’t a bender, healer, or _gēshŏu_ himself, but damn if it didn’t feel like he could be.

“So you’d marry her to someone who’s leaving.”

“We’d be negotiating for their marriage even if she wasn’t, and _he_ wasn’t,” Marcus said. “They wouldn’t accept anyone else.”

“Either of them would take Kiku.”

He could _hear_ the raised eyebrow.

“And the authorities in Yu Dao wouldn’t notice _that_ if I tried to put it on a marriage certificate?”

Gilbert shrugged.

“Besides,” Marcus said thoughtfully. “I would say the chances of Kiku _not_ following them to Republic City are… small.”

True enough.

Gilbert met Marcus’s eyes again, and raised his cup slightly.

“To a marriage?”

Ceramics solemnly _clink_ ed together.

“To a marriage.”


End file.
